The kids have been passing prom photos around the tables.
Allison got a bunch of the kids together and they went as a
group.

The kids have been laughing, recalling the highlights. Dinner at
The Cornhusker, and an evacuation there because of a kitchen fire.
Prom at a ballroom in the Nebraska Union at UNL. The post-prom
party at the Lincoln East gym.

I want to sit by Allison, Andrew, a boy who had a brain tumor,
said at dinner.

No, Trevor said. I want to sit by Allison.

Allison sat between them.

Here’s the photo.

When Trevor’s hamburger came, the first thing he said was:
Where’s the ketchup?

Here’s the photo of handsome Zach Marolf in a black suit and
rose boutonniere.

“I’m Zach and I danced at the prom.”

“And I danced with him,” Allison says. “Whew.”

Mrs. Witters-Churchill, a special-ed teacher here for 11 years,
has never seen anything like this year’s bunch, and the three
special seniors who made it happen.

About 30 kids are crowded knees-to-knees around tables in her
room. They had to steal chairs from another room.

Lunch Bunch used to be once a month. Then a girl said: Why don’t
we meet every week? Now it’s every Thursday.

Kids of every kind come. Jocks. Cheerleaders. Quiet kids. Brainy
kids. The boy who had a brain tumor, and radiation. A boy who had a
brain injury from a football collision and scars in his hair and an
outgoing personality. Special-ed kids.

A girl sits in a wheelchair, dark curls against a cushioned
headrest. A para feeds her spaghetti and milk.

Allison speaks for her — she’s Kelli Blacketer and she’s on the
Oracle staff and she loved going to the prom, too.

nnn

C-A-N … Y-O-U … P-U-S-H … M-E …

Kelli pointed to letters on a board in front of her.

They were dancing — Melinda Biggs pushing Kelli in the
wheelchair — in the ballroom as “Jessie’s Girl” started to
play.

Melinda could see Kelli was excited.

T-O … T-H-E … M-U-S-I-C?

Before prom, Kelli had been one of the few Lunch Bunch kids
Melinda hadn’t connected with yet.

“There’s always a para with her, so it’s hard to not rely on the
para to interact. I always felt kind of awkward with Kelli — should
I be talking to Kelli or the para?

“But at prom, the whole group was just so inclusive. She’d look
at me to make sure I understood, and I’d nod, ‘Yeah.’”

She pushed her friend to the music.

nnn

Hannah Lindner went to the prom with the group, though she’s not
a member.

She’s blind. She and Melinda have a poetry class together.
Melinda invited her at the last minute.

Hannah wore a periwinkle dress and black high heels.

Here’s a photo of her and Allison and Melinda and Kelli. They
are making funny faces and poses.

“I hadn’t planned to go,” Hannah says. “So it was really cool. I
got my dress that very morning at Younkers. I made an emergency
trip to Younkers with my mom and sister.

“It was the first time I actually got to dance with a guy in a
long time, I think since the eighth grade when we had to dance in
P.E. class.”

Her feet had blisters by the end of the night.

nnn

Zach Marolf came home at 4:30 the next morning carrying a pizza
and boxes of Fiddle-Faddle from the post-prom party.

He was so wound up he couldn’t sleep.

Over reheated pizza, he told his parents about the dinner and
the party and the sumo-wrestler suits the kids could put on and
wrestle each other, how he danced with cheerleaders and a girl on
the dance team and Allison, his date.

(Allison officially had four dates that night: Zach and Trevor
and Myles and Andrew.)

“There’s just not a lot of kids like that who will incorporate
special-ed kids, especially on prom night,” Cecily Marolf says.